Magic Bus
Yale Cohn
A “history” of tailgating in Iowa City
B
etween the city council’s passage of the “21-Only” ordinance aimed at keeping those under the age of 21 out of Iowa City bars after 10 p.m. and The University of Iowa’s new “Think Before You Drink” initiative aimed at cracking down on tailgating-related drinking, the powers that be are hoping to alter the course of the river of booze that flows through Iowa City. Part of the city’s new ordinance has raised the possible fine for being under 21 in a bar after 10 p.m. to more than $1000. Meanwhile, the fine for possessing a nuclear weapon within city limits is $500. Speaking only for myself, I’d prefer that 19-year-olds were downtown experimenting with new ways to drink tequila rather than at home experimenting with uranium enrichment because, from what I’ve read, radiation poisoning is even worse than a really bad tequila hangover-and much more likely to affect a larger number of people. One might wonder if the council members had been drinking themselves when they came up with this fee structure. This would not be without historical precedent as inebriation, and the oftentimes poor decision making that accompanies it, has been a popular pastime in college towns ever since Oog the Caveman opened the first Division 1 College in the world during the Paleolithic Era over 40,000 years ago. (Based on its enrollment, which was only two, it really should have been a Division 3 school, but people could not count that high at the time.) Oog’s “Learn use club. Learn kill bear. Learn catch women. Learn get job.” curriculum (which we now know as a “Communications 12
September 2010 | Little Village
Degree”) was pretty rigorous for its day. Yet, even then, his students still spent a lot of time trying to alter their consciousness. For the first 35,000 years that humans attended college, this was normally achieved by students hitting each other on the head with their clubs (which is why, to this day, a hangover feels like you’ve been hit on the head with a club; it is a vestigial remnant of the very first hangovers in human history.) Then, around 4000 B.C., the ancient Egyptian god Osiris invented beer to impress a girl, Isis. His newlyinvented drink
dents occurred at 9:15 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 6, 1855--not quite three months after Iowa became the first public university in the United States to admit women and men on an equal basis. It was a bitterly cold night, and a male student who had invited a female classmate back to his meager quarters in a nearby stable to study poured them each a glass of whiskey to help them warm up. What they were really planning to study was each other, but their plans were halted when she unexpectedly shared her whiskey-and the potatoes she had eaten for dinner--with the horses. Her spontaneous act of generosity spooked them, and one horse reared up and stepped on the young man in the place men would least like to be stepped on by a horse, especially while feeling studious. (Shortly thereafter, he dropped out of school, became a minister, and never again touched alcohol, women or horses.) His impromptu gelding inspired the university to launch their first anti-drinking initiativeInebriation, and the helped him woo her, to Drinking”--but it ion -“Nuts and, later--after they was to no avail. oftentimes poor decis ies were married and he More recently, on the west making that accompan learned she was his side of campus, folks who it, has been a popular sister--it was very may have been too drunk useful in helping him to notice the 70,000-seat pastime in college for process this news. stadium they bought homes s. over 40,000 year The very first cover across the street from have charge (so named for started complaining about the fact that their the fee one paid to drink indoors while tak- neighborhood gets swarmed with people when ing cover from swarming locusts) was created the Hawkeyes are playing. (And by “people” shortly thereafter. I mean “people who have been drinking since Oog’s college later became “The University 7 a.m.”) of Oog” when it started offering a post-graduThe city council heard these complaints and, ate degree, “Learn Make Fire,” but not much acting on them, denied the beloved Magic Bus has changed since then, really. a permit to relocate to a new location when its Locally, the first known instance of under- original home changed owners, their lease was age drinking involving University of Iowa stu- not renewed and they wanted to drop anchor a
Tailgating
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few blocks away. across the street to the stadium, and dig a small Iowa shot glasses, beer steins, martini glasses, “The Bus,” as it was known to its fans, began lake with mooring space for one yacht. beer glasses and pitchers that feature their colits life on Melrose Avenue in 1856 as a handThese improvements were aimed at attract- ors and logos. (But only non-alcoholic drinks cart pulled by two Mormon pioneers trekking ing a “more professional crowd” of drinkers to though, since their own licensing policy exwest to Salt Lake City who were waylaid when the site on game days under the new, swanki- pressly forbids the use of their trademarks or a well-endowed female Iowa student (who was er-sounding name “The Stadium Club,” which logos on merchandise used for alcohol condrinking her ninth beer of the morning) offered was rumored to feature new “professional sumption.) them a beer and drinking” amenities like a coat All of these drinking-related crackdowns, in said she would One might wonder if the check, complimentary cucumber concert, seem like taking the hand that feeds flash her boobs finger sandwiches, liver dialysis you and sticking it into a margarita blender. council members had been treatment and “valet puking,” to them in exIf The University of Iowa (and its somechange for a drinking themselves. featuring specially trained atten- times boozy students) weren’t here, would free radio stadants who would hold your hair Iowa City really be much more than a rest stop tion T-shirt. back for you while you vomited. on the road from Des Moines to Chicago? Although they were deeply pious men who The city, however, after inspecting the im“Welcome to Iowa City: A UNESCO City had no idea what a “T-shirt” was and who had proved site, decided to deny a temporary use of Clean Bathrooms. Gas. Arby’s.” dedicated their entire lives up to that point to permit for tailgating at this location as well. The first measure of how this will ultimateabstemiousness in all things, the ancient siren They did this because a) these improvements ly play out, long-term, won’t be known until song of alcohol and women caused them to were dubiously “temporary”; b) they don’t November, when the petition to rescind the abandon their trek--and their faith--entirely like drinking; and, c) they felt like it. (There 21-Only ordinance is put to a vote. (thus creating the mold that many future reli- may have been additional In the meantime, if some gious leaders would be cast from.) reasons, I’m not sure, but gray-haired and well-dressed From what I’ve read, 70-something alum is tipsily Inarguably the most famous tailgating des- a newly passed ordinance tination in town, watching the game at “The prohibits the use of the stumbling home from an openradiation poisoning Bus” was just like watching the game at home, words “tail” and “gate” bar, university-sponsored n tha is even worse in your living room, except with 500 of your in the same sentence, so I charity fundraiser and he gets a really bad tequila a quart of vomit “charitably closest friends and while standing on a lawn wasn’t able to legally call that was, by day’s end, a sea of mud, spilled and ask.) deposited” on his black-andhangover—and beer, urine and turkey leg bones. It was the Rather than see the site gold silk tie by a 20-yearmuch more likely most fun you could have with your shirt on- remain empty on opening old sorority girl wearing a to affect a larger -and sometimes with your shirt off also--as it day, the property’s new radio station T-shirt who’s continued to draw women willing to flash their owners are in negotiations had one (or seven) too many number of people... boobs to strangers in exchange for free radio with several other organijello shots trying to beat the station T-shirts, a transaction much easier to zations that have an inter10 p.m. cut-off time, I only hope I’m there to complete now that radio stations and T-shirts est in using the site, including “The Bus” itself witness it. had actually been invented. which may yet emerge from this bureaucratic It would be really touching to see a sweet For most men (being, as we are, a rather hangover to live again. grandfather-granddaughter bonding moment singularly focused and simple-minded lot) this Perhaps, if no agreement can be worked out like that. one-of-a-kind combination of football, flesh that satisfies the city’s capricious zoning stanand beer could only be described as paradise dards, the university could buy the property Yale Cohn has learned that The University of itself. and open its own tailgating business there. Iowa’s plan to paint all buildings within an The property’s new owners felt that paradise If the university does open a tailgating ven- eight-block radius of Kinnick Stadium pink needed to be improved upon so they decided ture there, they could even serve drinks in in an attempt to pacify game day crowds has to pave it, add a helipad, build a tram that ran the many “Officially Licensed” University of been deemed cost-prohibitive.
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